Prosocial Behavior and Caring in Adolescence: Relations to Self-Understanding and Social Judgment

Abstract

The relation of self-understanding and moral judgment to dedicated prosocial behavior is investigated. Participants were African-American and Latin-American adolescents who had been nominated by community leaders for having demonstrated unusual commitments to care for others or the community (care exemplars). The care exemplars, and matched comparison adolescents, were extensively interviewed over the course of 4-6 sessions in order to elicit self-understanding, moral judgment, and implicit personality theories. The care exemplars were more likely than the comparison adolescents to: (1) describe themselves in terms of moral personality traits and goals, (2) view themselves as having closer continuity to their pasts and futures, (3) think of themselves as incorporating their ideals and parental images, and (4) articulate theories of self in which personal beliefs and philosophies are important. There were no differences between the care exemplars and the comparison adolescents in developmental stages of moral judgment nor in the abstractness of their implicit personality theories.

The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.

“…Blasi found some support for the claim that high scorers on Kohlberg's and Rest's scales were more likely to help other people, but more recent studies have raised doubts. Hart and Fegley (1995), and Colby and Damon (1992) both compared highly pro-social moral exemplars to non-exemplars, and found that the groups did not differ in their moral reasoning ability assessed by Kohlbergian techniques. A recent review of evidence supporting the utility of the Defining Issues Test described three studies that showed a relationship between DIT scores and negative moral behaviors, but none showing a relationship between DIT scores and positive morality (Thoma, Narvaez, Rest, & Derryberry, 1999).…”

Theoretical and hypothetical framework for research on political socialization process in the family

“…Тај утицај родитеља слаби са годинама, али никад потпуно не нестаје. Емпириј-ски је такође потврђена тесна веза између друштвеног активизма адолесце-ната, саморазумевања и моралних схватања која се стичу и развијају у поро-дици (Hart, Fegley, 1995). Укљученост у друштвене и политичке активности у раној младости предуслов је за такво дуготрајно понашање и опредељење током целог живота.…”

Because It Is the Right Thing to Do

“…They and a comparison group of adolescents from the same community were asked to generate a list of all of the important characteristics that they could think of that described themselves as they are in the present, the Nucci person they were in the past, the person they dreaded becoming, and the kind of person they would ideally like to become. What Hart and Fegley [1995] assumed was that persons whose actual selves incorporate a subset of their ideal selves will be more driven to realize the goals of the ideal self, than persons whose ideal self and actual self are unrelated. What they discovered in their study was in line with that hypothesis.…”

“…Employing a different approach, Hart and Fegley [1995] studied the moral identities of a group of inner city adolescents who exhibited a high degree of community service voluntarism and care for others. These adolescents were identified by community leaders, teachers, and churches as youth who had done such things as organize youth groups, and work in homeless shelters.…”